


Down the Rabbit Hole

by sweeteangel1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animated GIFs, Anonymous Sex, Ball Gags, Big Dick Draco, Biting, Consensual Kink, Cunnilingus, Draco Malfoy has a big dick, Embedded Images, Explicit Consent, F/M, Foreplay, Glory Hole, Identity Issues, Kink, Kink Negotiation, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Reverse glory hole, Rough Sex, Secret Identity, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Shops, Sort Of, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Voice Kink, and with minor plot, because of course, but only briefly, for those unfamiliar with this incredibly niche thing, good girl hermione, hermione just wants some dick and takes some somewhat drastic measures to get some, incredibly minor d/s undertones, inspired by porn, it's just a glory hole where the pussy is out instead, now continued from a one-shot into a 3-shot, since this is such a niche thing i've included some visual gif references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28831290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeteangel1/pseuds/sweeteangel1
Summary: Sweet Merlin, what had she been thinking? It had sounded good in theory... a few anonymous shags, something to take the edge off of a dry spell that was lasting longer than she was comfortable admitting. It had seemed sexy, and had come with a level of confidentiality she could never hope to find in the wizarding world.But now, ankles in the air, naked from the waist down, and dry as the Sahara, she was reconsidering her decision.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 65
Kudos: 400





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching some porn the other day, and I couldn't get into it because I couldn't stop thinking about dramione. It wasn't until I had invented an elaborate scenario as to why they'd be in a similar position that I was actually able to pay attention to the video. This fandom has corrupted me. I figured since I already had such a detailed scenario in my head, I might as well write it down. 
> 
> Huge thanks to @valancyjane74 for betaing this and cheering me on

Sweet Merlin, what had she been thinking? It had sounded good in theory... a few anonymous shags, something to take the edge off of a dry spell that was lasting longer than she was comfortable admitting. It had seemed sexy, and had come with a level of confidentiality she could never hope to find in the wizarding world. She had done her research, and made sure to choose an establishment with an emphasis on safety and consent. All the other women she had talked to had found it liberating, and she appreciated that the shop was run by staunch feminists.  
  
But now, ankles in the air, naked from the waist down, and dry as the Sahara, she was reconsidering her decision.  
  
The first half hour had been fine. She had arrived, as scheduled, on Tuesday afternoon. The employee on duty had warned her that they didn't tend to get a lot of traffic this time of the week, maybe a regular or two but few stragglers, and that had suited her perfectly. She wasn't trying to jump into the deep end here, and the idea of an endless parade of men felt intimidating. No, one or two had been a much more comfortable number. After she had signed the consent and privacy forms and verbally confirmed, again, that she wanted to go through with it, the employee had shown her to a small booth, about the size of a closet, with a bench and a side table where she could put her clothes, or grab one of the available water bottles. She had reminded Hermione that all patrons were briefed on safe and proper procedure and were expected to use protection and stop immediately if Hermione were to knock three times, the agreed upon pseudo-safeword. However, in case of an emergency there was also a panic button on the underside of the bench known only to the girls. In the event that it was used, security would be there within seconds. Hermione had smiled and thanked her, but privately thought it wouldn't be necessary. Hermione had also taken precautions-- she had an emergency portkey stored in her purse, and her wand at the ready. She had been practicing her nonverbal spellcasting and was confident she could discreetly handle any problems that might crop up. The whole point of this endeavor was to get her needs met without calling attention to herself, and causing a scene with muggle security, even to get out of a sticky situation, was the last thing she wanted. As for her health, she had done extensive research, and all evidence pointed to the fact that wizards were unable to contract STDs. Which is not to say that wizards never received unfortunate news after a sexual encounter, only that it was always the result of an angry lover and some deliberately cast sexual hexes. Seeing as how she was in Muggle London and her partners would be unaware of her identity, she didn't expect it to be a problem. The same was true of the risk of pregnancy-- Hermione's contraceptive charms were strong and lasted for a few hours at least, more than enough time for her two hour booking. She had played around with the spell, and modified it so she could feel a slight pleasant tingling under the skin of her abdomen while the charm was in effect. Ginny's first child had been the result of a hastily cast spell before an all-day sex marathon, which had caused Hermione to immediately look into ways to monitor the efficacy of the charm. She wasn't ready to be a mother, and wizards couldn't always be trusted to cast the spell correctly or accurately report on the duration of their charms, much in the same way that they couldn't be relied upon to report other sexual attributes of theirs accurately. She had cast the charm before she arrived, and could still feel it buzzing under her skin.  
  
After reviewing the safety procedures, the employee had left her to her privacy. Hermione had stripped and taken a deep breath before pulling out the ball gag she had brought with her. She enjoyed having something to bite down on, and always found it comforting to have something in her mouth. More importantly, the added precaution would help disguise the sound of her voice, and therefore, her identity. She had made sure the employee told any potential patrons that she wouldn't be able to verbally respond during any encounters, lest they worry. Hermione knew that she was being overly cautious-- she was in the middle of muggle London, had chosen this establishment for its discretion and safety, and was doing this specifically so no one would be able to see her face, but she didn't want to take a single chance that someone she knew from the muggle world would be able to recognize her by voice alone. The stakes were higher in the wizarding world, where her private life was constantly being invaded by paparazzi and her status at the ministry meant her every move was under scrutiny, but she didn't think she could handle the embarrassment of a muggle acquaintance recognizing her either. No, she required complete anonymity, and a ball gag helped her achieve it. She had considered a _silencio_ , but had dismissed the idea, thinking that that level of absolute silence from a partner would be eerie and off-putting. She'd still like to be able to audibly express her appreciation, just muffled.  
  
Once she had fastened the gag, she had _scourgified_ the bench and gingerly laid down, knees bent. She had taken another deep breath through her nose before scooting closer to the wall, slowly sliding her feet through the torso-sized hole in front of her. It had taken her a few moments to gather the courage to go further once her knees had disappeared through the black flaps blocking the view of the other side, but eventually she had pushed her hips through, until her entire lower body lay bare and exposed in the room beyond. Cheeks flaming, she had brought her legs up until her toes could feel the grain of the wall in front of her, and widened her legs until her ankles brushed the stirrups bolted into the wood. With some awkward, and frankly embarrassing, maneuvering, she had been able to slip her feet inside the straps and rest her weight on her ankles so she didn't exhaust her thigh muscles from holding her legs open. It wasn't the type of thing she expected a man to consider and help her with, and with the ball gag, she wouldn't be able to ask. Once she had relaxed into it, it had been thrilling, being exposed. Her nipples had tightened and her breath had caught and she could feel herself get slicker as she imagined the view on the other side. Her skin felt sensitive and all her senses were heightened as anticipation coursed through her. Finally, she'd get to have some real sex, and not just have to be content with the weak imitation she could achieve with her dildos. They weren't unenjoyable, but they paled in comparison to warm skin, the silky slide of a real cock, and the sounds of masculine pleasure. Plus, her wrist always tired too quickly to achieve the steady, prolonged rhythm that drove her wild. Even just thinking of what was to come had her pointing her chin skywards and pulling at her nipples as she arched into imaginary hips. The embarrassment was still there, but it was drowned out by the arousal as she wiggled her hips to chase phantom hands.  
  
That had been 45 minutes ago. Half an hour in, the arousal had faded, and boredom had set in. Apparently, the girl at the front wasn't lying when she said Tuesday afternoons were slow. She had hoped that she wouldn't encounter too many men, but she hadn't truly expected to encounter none at all. She feels like a fool, taking a day off from work and getting trussed up to get fucked by strangers, only to be left untouched and wanting, bereft. Just like in her regular life. She knows she should be proud of herself for daring to do something this adventurous at all, but mostly she just feels disappointment. It seems like no one wants Hermione Granger when she can’t be turned into a story over drinks with the boys about the time they had fucked a war heroine. She considers pulling her legs out of the stirrups, putting on her clothes, and leaving early, but she had promised herself that she would stay at least an hour. She had made the promise thinking she might be too sated and exhausted after the first few men to stay the whole time, but now she realizes that the real concern should have been whether anyone would show up at all. Somehow, it was more humiliating to offer herself up to sex with strangers and be rejected, than it was to be used as an anonymous hole for their enjoyment. Her cheeks burn, but this time in shame.  
  
She sighs, lifting her head to look at the unmoving black flaps descending from the top of the hole and curving outward along her stomach, and drops her head back down. She just wants this ordeal to be over. Ten minutes. Ten minutes, and then she would gather what was left of her dignity and flee.  
  
She’s just closed her eyes to try and meditate her way out of her overwhelming embarrassment, when she hears the soft whoosh of a door opening. Her eyes snap open. Was that the door in the other room? Was someone here? Or was it simply the sounds of the shop filtering in through the wall?  
  
Her question is answered by crisp sound of leather on tile. Footsteps. Someone has entered. Someone with leather shoes, not trainers, and a confident, relaxed gait. He must be one of the regulars, to be so comfortable. That was good, the lady at the front had said that the regulars had good reviews from the girls who had done this before, and they were extremely unlikely to try and break any of the rules. However, she can’t imagine the type of person who would regularly patronize a glory hole would wear leather shoes. Her whole body tightens again, this time with nerves. No one showing up was humiliating. But somehow, someone arriving was terrifying. She forces herself to try and steady her heartbeat, pressing a hand over her chest and inhaling shakily. With her other hand, she gropes for her bag to make sure her emergency portkey is still in reach. If need be, she can pull her feet out of the stirrups, kick him in the groin, and portkey away. She just needs to remember to pull her legs back through the hole before activating the portkey, lest a muggle see something difficult to explain. She takes another unsteady breath and reminds herself that this was what she was here for. This was supposed to be enjoyable, and she has no reason to assume malicious intent from this stranger. She tries to relax.  
  
"Hello." He greets, and she startles again at the sound of his voice. She hopes he doesn't notice her leg muscles jump. His footsteps get louder, and adrenaline floods her veins. It’s hard to breathe deeply around the ball gag, but she forces herself to try. She centers herself around the feeling of the contraceptive spell tingling in her abdomen, the leather of the stirrups against her ankles, and the padded bench against her back. She can do this. She’s going to enjoy this, dammit.  
  
Out of nowhere, she feels a warm hand on her leg, just below where her ankle met the leather of the stirrup. It travels lower, to her knee, and back up in a gentle caress against the side of her calf. "First time?" He asks warmly, and she forces herself into stillness.  
  
It’s quiet for a moment as he waits for her to respond, then seems to remember that she won’t. He clears his throat. "Right. You won't be speaking, of course. I prefer to talk to my partners, but that's fine." There’s another pause, this one a bit awkward, as he presumably contemplates how to proceed. Hermione half hopes he’s so displeased by her silence he’ll turn around and leave, but the rest of her is warming up to his continued strokes against her calf as her libido comes back online.  
  
"Regardless," he continues, "I'd like to have some way to communicate with you, beyond the three knock safeword. Perhaps you could knock once for yes or more, and twice to indicate no, or that you don't like something. Does that suit?" Hermione nods, before realizing he can't see it, and quickly knocks once against the wooden wall beside her.  
  
"Wonderful," he says, sounding pleased, and she almost misses his next words as familiarity niggles at the back of her brain. "I'm going to put my mouth on you now."  
  
He pauses briefly, waiting for a dissenting knock, before she feels something soft press into the skin above the side of her knee. His palm lifts off her calf and his lips trace the path his hand had been stroking, and he simultaneously trails his fingertips up the side of her leg he isn't kissing. His breath wafts across the sensitive skin behind her knee and she feels the hairs of her leg stand up on end. It feels good, surprisingly good, but Hermione is confused. Wasn't he just supposed to fuck her and leave?  
  
As if in response to her thoughts, he speaks again. "I like to take my time with wi- women. I know it's not traditional, but I prefer it to the complete impersonality of these kinds of encounters. If you'd rather I just get on with it, knock twice."  
  
His lips brush against her leg as he speaks, trailing further up her thigh, and she wonders again at where she recognizes his voice from. It’s hard to focus on anything but the soft touches against her skin, and she’s glad she’s on board with his plan for an extended encounter because she doesn't have the wherewithal to knock at the moment. She tries to sort through the men she knows in the muggle world, but she doesn't have many close muggle friends, and she can't imagine any of them at a place like this, having sex with strangers. They’re all quite buttoned up. Then again, she imagines they think the same of her, and here she is. She wonders if it’s a voice she’s heard on the telly, or a classmate from primary school. It wasn't the voice of anyone she had talked to in the last year, surely. Her thoughts unravel as something warm and wet strokes the skin halfway up her thigh, and she realizes the man in question has brought his tongue into play. She hums in appreciation, and pushes her hips forward to try and widen her legs further. She feels him smirk against her inner thigh as he begins nipping and sucking at the skin there. A small shiver runs through her at the feeling of his teeth scraping lightly against her.  
  
He continues up her increasingly sensitive thigh, his hand stroking in tandem, until he reaches the crease of her leg. He runs his fingertips across the skin where her leg meets her body, and his breath ghosts against her core. Her stomach jumps. But then his mouth reverses course and trails his kisses back up her leg to her knee. He kisses her inner knee once, and then lets go of her, ceasing his attentions to her body. Her breath catches, wondering if he’s going to leave. Surely not. A man wouldn't come to a glory hole just to kiss a woman's leg and leave.  
  
She holds her breath, and has to stop herself from audibly exhaling as she feels his hand at her other knee. He kisses up and down her calf, going a bit more quickly this time, before swiftly returning to her knee. Another kiss is placed there, paralleling the one on her other leg, before she feels his tongue again. This time his kisses are excruciating as anticipation tightens in her stomach. It feels like the contraceptive charm she cast intensifies from tingling to sparking. He nips a bit harder at her thigh and her back arches.  
  
"You like that?" He asks rhetorically, honey in his voice, and she scrambles to knock once. He pinches the back of her leg while sucking a bruise into her skin and she whimpers. It feels like her skin is on fire, too tight and sensitive. Without noticing, her breath had quickened and she can hear herself audibly exhaling. Her pussy feels overly warm and wet and he hasn't even touched her there yet. She raises her hips in invitation, hoping he’ll get the message.  
  
Instead, he seems to slow down, focusing on covering every inch of her inner left thigh with his lips. She’s sure she'll have marks tomorrow, but she doesn't care. No one will see them. He was driving her crazy, and his mouth sucking at her skin was sending lightning bolts to her core. She can't move her legs much in this position, but she tries to widen them again, hoping to entice him lower. He inches downwards at a snail’s pace, until he reaches the end of her leg, and he pulls away.  
  
On the other side of the partition, Hermione growls. She came here for orgasms, not frustration. What the hell was this man playing at, winding her up like this and refusing to touch her where she needed? She almost wants to take the gag off and tell him to get on with it.  
  
Then, suddenly, fingertips are swiping up her core, gliding through her slick. "There we go." He says, pleased. "Nice and wet for me."  
  
Her breath catches, previous indignation forgotten. He pulls his hand away again, and she freezes in anticipation. For a moment, nothing-- and then the sound of fabric sliding against fabric, and two very soft thumps. Then, the feeling of heat and presence centimeters from her exposed vulva, close enough to sense. Warm air blows across her lips, and she can feel herself trembling.  
  
Warm palms slide across her butt cheeks, spreading and squeezing them. "You have an incredible ass, has anyone ever told you that?" He asks. She moans. No knocks. She can’t pull her scattered brain together enough to formulate and execute a response to his question. He'd have to live with not knowing.

  
"If you were mine, I'd worship this ass," he tells her before moving his hands to grip her waist. Then his lips are at the crease of her thigh where his fingers used to be, but this time, he's not pulling away.  
  
He sucks at the outside of her lips, moving upward, avoiding her clit, kissing her mons, and down the other side. He makes a full circle, sucking briefly over her core, and his hands leave her waist to part her folds. He opens her wide and starts licking through her folds, then he points his tongue and does it again. He sucks her clit between his lips briefly, so so briefly, just enough to tease, and then he's sliding two fingers into her core and she's arching at the stretch. "Good girl." He soothes as he curls his fingers and starts pressing them across her front wall. He's rubbing across her inner wall like he's looking for something, and she gasps as her whole body lights up when he finds _that_ spot. His other hand continues to hold her open, thumb spreading her and fingers gripping her thigh as he nibbles on her inner lips.  
  
"Just like that," he says as she whines and tries to grind into his face. She's scrabbling at the walls, searching for something to grip as her heart races and her blood pumps like she's hurtling down the track of a rollercoaster. It feels like every nerve ending in her body has migrated down to her clit. If he would just put his mouth _right there_...  
  
He lets go of her inner wall to start scissoring his fingers, then begins to pump them in and out. She can feels herself tighten around them as he swipes his tongue over her entrance, catching his fingers, then sucks.  
  
"You taste amazing," he groans into her, and she can feel it in her bones. He adds a third finger and her neck is stretching back as far as it'll go, as he starts circling, but never quite touching, her clit with his tongue.  
  
"Please," she tries to beg around the gag, but it just comes out as a muffled sound of need. He chuckles and it vibrates across her skin. She has the presence of mind to bang her open palm against the wall once, _more_ , and he's curling his fingers again, all three of them this time.  
  
He starts pressing them rhythmically against her G spot, like he's playing an instrument. She feels lightheaded as he keeps circling her clit, then switching back and forth between pressing on and rubbing at her front wall. But he's losing his precision, now, as he speeds up, and she keens as his tongue occasionally, accidentally swipes across her clit.  
  
He pulls his mouth away from her folds just long enough to bite her inner thigh and she yells into the gag. Tears start gathering in her eyes and she gasps and pants, rocking her hips into his lips and tongue.  
  
Then he blows on her clit before suctioning his mouth around it and her eyes roll into the back of her head as she clamps down around his fingers. The gag vibrates against her teeth as she groans into it, fists clenched, back arched, her mind completely blank for one perfect moment.  
  
Then she's gasping in gulps of air as the pendulum of her orgasm swings downwards, still clenching and unclenching around him, muscles out of her control. Her entire lower body twitches periodically, sparks of pleasure shooting through her, and she exhales noisily. He stays still as she comes down, and she whines as he removes his fingers when her inner walls finally release him.  
  
He kisses her inner thigh, a few centimeters inwards of where he bit it. "Good girl," he praises. "Are you ready for my cock?"  
  
She takes a shaky breath in and nods frantically, but nothing happens. She hears him stand up, and his hands come to rest on her hips, thumbs rubbing soothingly across the tops of her thighs.  
  
"I'm waiting," he says, amused, and she realizes she has to knock. She knocks her fist against the wall, hard. _Yes_. She waits long enough for it not to be confused with a second knock, and then knocks again. _More._  
  
She hears metal, then the rustle of fabric, and then one of his hands leaves her as the other grips her torso.  
  
So quietly that she would have missed it if not for her familiarity with the spell, she hears a muttered contraceptive charm. Her eyes widen, but she only has a moment to contemplate the revelation that the man about to fuck her is a wizard before something blunt is pushing at her entrance and her walls are stretching to accommodate it.  
  
She groans as he pushes in slowly, and she feels her muscles twitching, trying to take more of his length. He's bigger than she's been with before and she feels stretched-out and extra sensitive, vulnerable. She doesn't realize she's making small, punched-out noises until she feels him stroking her lower stomach with his thumbs, murmuring " _Shhhhh."_ It soothes her, and she tries to regulate her breathing.  
  
Another few slow moments and he bottoms out. She trembles a bit, having all of him inside of her. "I've got you sweetheart," he's saying. "You're doing so well." She wishes she could see his face to know if he looks as caring as he sounds.  
  
He strokes up and down the inside of her thighs, which are still sensitive from earlier. She relaxes into the sensation, melting a bit, and adjusting to him more fully. He shifts a bit inside her as his body moves, and she feels him press a kiss right above her ankle, as if in reassurance, or praise. "You take my cock so beautifully," he tells her, and her face flames even as sparks zing across her body. She had no idea she liked to be talked to like this, but she can't pretend that it's not turning her on. She feels vulnerable, in the thrillingly way she inevitably does naked with her legs open, but also oddly safe. Like she can trust this man, this wizard, who she knows but doesn't, with her body. It's a relief, considering her nervousness when he first walked in.  
  
He starts out with long, even strokes, letting her get used to him. She lets herself sink into the bench, eyes closing, focusing on the sensation. It's been too long since she's slept with someone, and while this isn't exactly a one night stand, it appears to be just what her body was craving. She likes the warmth at her thighs, the feeling of strong hands on her body, the fullness. Idly, her mind begins to pick apart his voice, wondering why she knows it. It's not a voice she's heard recently, so no one from the Ministry, which is a relief. While the fact that he's a wizard comes as a shock, she's not as worried as she was before she arrived today. There's no way for him to know her identity, or even that she's a witch, and he's not anyone she interacts with regularly, so she doesn't have to wonder about which of her colleagues she's fucked in the back room of a sex shop.  
  
She must've been quiet for too long, because he asks "You still with me?" She knocks once, and he rewards her with another "Good girl," and picks up the pace. Still an even tempo, but faster, and he clutches at her waist to anchor her to him. She's not sure if he changes the angle, but suddenly his pelvis is bumping her clit with every thrust, and she gasps and flutters around him. "That's it," he tells her, "Want to feel you come around my cock."  
  
Hermione doesn't usually come twice in a single sexual encounter, if she comes at all. The men she'd been with had made the obligatory halfhearted attempts at helping her reach orgasm, but never put in the level of effort necessary to really get her there. Often, she was the one reaching down to slide her fingers over her clit to try and get herself close before her partner finished and left her behind. Sometimes she was successful, other times less so.  
  
But this man... despite not being able to see her expression, he seemed to be able to read her body like a book. Not only that, but he seemed invested in her pleasure, despite having no idea of her identity. He acted like it was important that she enjoy herself as much as him, even if all he knew about her was that she had an ass worth worshipping. If he was this considerate of a lover with an anonymous pair of legs, she'd love to know what he'd be like as a committed boyfriend. She imagined the sex would be somehow, impossibly, more mind-blowing.  
  
The pace and angle change again, and this time it feels like he's thrusting up into her. Her toes point as her breath catches and he hits something deep inside her that she's _never_ felt before. Her body doesn't seem to know how to respond, part of it so overwhelmed by sensation that it's scrambling to get away, another part deciding that this is exactly how she should feel all the time and _Good Godric_ don't stop. She doesn't have time to mourn the loss of his pelvis against her clit before one of the hands at her waist is slipping lower to play with her, rolling her clit between his fingers, rubbing back and forth across it with his thumb, and lightly pinching it.  
  
Half out of her mind with pleasure, she instinctively pushes up on her elbows so she can tilt her hips and help him with the angle. She hears him let out a heartfelt " _Fuck_ " in response.  
  
His cock keeps hitting her over and over in that perfect place, and she lets out a strangled sound as she feels her stomach tightening. He starts talking, a litany of curses, with " _perfect_ ", " _so good for me_ ", and " _good girl_ " thrown in for good measure.  
  
He gasps out "You feel incredible," as her inner walls start to grip him, and something in her brain clicks into place. Suddenly, she knows whose voice is on the other side of the partition, and whose cock is fucking her to one of her best orgasms in years.  
  
It's the memory of Draco Malfoy's eyes the last time she had seen him, and the way they had burned with something other than anger, something closer to lust, for a split second when he looked at her, before cooling back to their regular icy, confident silver that sends her over the edge. Her knees lock, and she screams, the gag muffling the volume but not the intensity. She collapses back on to the bench, her pussy gripping his cock with what feels like all the strength in her body, as he continues pounding into her. She can't move, she can't do anything but let the waves of pleasure wash over her as she expels all the air in her lungs. She feels her fingernails biting into her palms where she’s closed her hands into fists, and it feels like every molecule in her person is singing, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.  
  
He keeps thrusting, less evenly now, as she tries to restart her breathing. Her walls are still clutching him tightly, but it hasn't affected his speed. If anything, he's sped up, his groans sounding desperate. When she finally unclenches, her body feels liquid, every muscle in her body turned to jelly. A wave of exhaustion and relaxation washes over her as he grunts once before twitching inside of her. She lets out a happy sigh as she feels herself fill with warmth.  
  
They stay like that for a minute, her blissed out and floating, him still. He rubs up and down one of her legs languidly, and it’s grounding in the best way. "You okay?" He asks quietly, and she's not human enough yet to knock, so she simply moans happily into her gag in pleasure and assent. He exhales a deep breath, laughing a bit, as she closes her eyes and drifts. She realizes again that it's Draco Malfoy on the other side of the wall, and her current state of nirvana doesn't allow her to feel anything but zen about it. She's never heard him laugh like that, soft and not cruel. He must have changed during the war, to laugh like that. To treat his faceless sexual partners like that. To frequent muggle establishments.

  
He pulls out, slowly, and she mourns the loss of the feeling of fullness. Her face heats as she feels herself gush with fluids. "Thank you," he says, another thing she's never heard from him before, and then he's dropping another kiss below her ankle. She thinks _she_ should be the one thanking _him_ , but she doesn't have enough of her wits about her to do anything but hum.  
  
For a few moments it's silent except for the sound of rustling fabric and the beat of her heart. Then she hears footsteps, retreating this time, and less steady than before. He calls out a soft "Take care," and then the door snicks open and shut, and she assumes he's left.  
  
She allows herself sixty seconds of bonelessness, letting the weight of contentment to seep into her body. And then she's groaning, this time in reluctance, and she halfheartedly tugs her feet out of the stirrups. It takes her a minute, as they were difficult to maneuver into and are not simple to maneuver out of, but eventually she manages to gather what's left of the energy in her body to free her legs. They immediately drop down to the ground like lead weights, half numb. She takes a deep breath in and considers resting there for another few minutes-- surely her two hours aren't up-- but the idea of someone else walking in is motivating enough to get her stirring. She's not up for another round, and she certainly couldn't handle running into another childhood acquaintance at the moment.  
  
She sits up, slowly and despite her body's protests, then sags as she leans her forehead against the wall in front of her. She could fall asleep just like this. Instead, she scoots her bum backwards on the bench and brings her knees up to pull them back through the hole in front of her. She can feel her thighs burning, stiffness already beginning to set in, and she knows she'll be sore tomorrow, both from exertion and Draco's attentions. She thrills a bit at thinking his name, and bites her lip to keep herself from reliving the past twenty minutes. Later. She can think about it later. Preferably in the company of her favorite vibrator.  
  
She unbuckles her gag, fingers heavy and stumbling, and slides it out from between her teeth. She moves her jaw up and down and it feels oddly weightless now that it's not clenching around the ball of the gag. It clicks when she moves it, and she rubs at the hinge of her mouth, trying to massage it into submission. She wrinkles her nose at the spit dripping off of the gag, and gathers her mind enough to cast a wordless _scourgio_ , on both the gag and herself, before bundling it up into the pouch she brought it in and slipping it into her purse.  
  
She swings her legs around to set them on the floor of her side of the wall, and almost topples over when she tries to stand. She groans. She can't act human right now. She can't even imagine leaving this booth to walk past the store clerk, knowing the woman knows exactly what just happened. It was one thing to talk to her when getting fucked was a hopeful possibility, but Hermione doesn't think she can handle a conversation with the woman when she's just had her mind blown by the filthiest thing she's ever done. Not that there's a long list. She drops her head into her hands when she realizes the clerk must know Draco, if he's a regular, and would have been the person to vet him and give him access to her room today. No, there's no way she can face her.  
  
Instead, suddenly shy, Hermione takes the cowardly way out, and hopes the clerk thinks Hermione snuck out while she was distracted. She bundles her clothes in her lap, not bothering to try and put them on, and grabs a water bottle for good measure. She grabs her purse, glancing around to make sure she has all her belongings, before slipping her hand inside her bag and groping around for the emergency portkey she charmed to take her straight back to her bedroom in her empty flat.  
  
She arrives home, and finds herself landing on the floor with a thump, forgetting she had been sitting when she grabbed the portkey. Her clothes are scattered around her, thankfully all accounted for, and she feels lightheaded, both from the spin of the portkey and her recent orgasms. She snatches the water bottle she nicked and takes a sip, feeling her heartbeat finally start slowing down.  
  
Still not trusting herself to walk, she pushes herself onto her knees and crawls over to her ensuite bathroom, turning on the taps to run a restorative bath. The steam of the water feels heavenly as she uses the tub and the counter to pull herself to standing. Her legs wobble like a newborn foal, but she manages to stay upright. When she glances in the mirror, she notices that her hair looks like it's encountered an electric current, and she has a huge, wide grin on her face that she can't even feel.  
  
She _accios_ her water bottle and drinks about half of it, realizing she must be dehydrated, before applying some chap stick to her dry, stretched lips. The wizarding world still hasn't caught up to these small, simple muggle products, and she’s grateful for the simple, familiar convenience after such a world-shaking experience. She lets herself stand for a moment, eyes closed and just _feeling_ , before turning to check the tap.  
  
When she finally sinks into the inviting heat of her bath, she allows herself to begin formulating a plan. It seems about time to conveniently reacquaint herself with a certain quick-witted blonde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written fic since I was in middle school over a decade ago, and I've never written smut before. In fact, I would've told you 3 days ago that I don't write fic at all! Hopefully it's a decent first attempt. Hope you enjoyed, I'd love to read your thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hermione has a lot to think about, and some investigating to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but you guys convinced me to add more. But it's not going to be more than 3 chapters!
> 
> Thanks again to the incredible @valancyjane74 for betaing. She has a very fun Dramione story that she updates regularly and very kindly took some time out of her writing to look this over for me. I occasionally contribute some French dirty talk to her sex scenes, so if that sounds like your kind of thing you should check it out ;)
> 
> Technically no smut this chapter, though we do have some rather vivid fantasies. Hermione has some things to work through before she sees Draco again. Rest assured though, the smut will be back full force next chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Hermione takes a few days to process. The first day goes like this: she wakes up before her alarm goes off, for the first time in recent memory. She wasn't one to sleep in, or press snooze three times before dragging herself out of bed like some of her friends, but also, she cherished every moment of sleep that she managed to get and was not inclined to cut that precious time short. But the day after her encounter with Draco, she finds herself stretching awake, refreshed, a solid fifteen minutes before her 7:30 alarm. She lets out a happy sigh as her eyes flutter open and her limbs come back online after a long, restful sleep. And then she remembers.

Something Hermione learned before the war, but found integral to her survival during it, is that being brave is not so much about constantly believing in yourself and your actions as it is about being able to put aside your fear for just long enough to do what needs to be done. You could be scared later, in the privacy of your bedroom, when no one was watching you. It was a lesson learned on the playground, where it was better to be bold in making friends and playing games than stand on the sidelines and wait to be picked. She'd pick apart every single thing she said and did, and everything everyone else said and did, when she got home, but in the moment, she only allowed herself to focus on her goals. It was a lesson learned in the classroom too-- her classmates may have groaned and whispered when she raised her hand, and she'd quietly cried herself to sleep many a night her first few years of Hogwarts out of shame, but she'd rather ask questions and get good marks than stew in frustration and confusion because she was unwilling to speak up for fear of ridicule. If she was going to be hated anyway, it was better to be hated for something she chose. It didn't matter if Hermione felt too loud or too opinionated or too bossy later-- it mattered that she never let them see it. And she never let it stop her from doing what she wanted.

All this to say-- it was one thing for Hermione to have a moment of bravery in booking her appointment. One thing for her to show up, get naked, and convince herself to take a chance. One thing to have her world rocked by a sexy, mysterious wizard who she never had to look in the eye. But it was an entirely different matter for her to wake up the next morning and remember that she had let her childhood bully stick his fingers up her fanny and call her a good girl.

The moment her brain comes online, she’s flooded with memories of the day before, and simultaneous waves of horror and humiliation. Oh Godric, tell her she didn't really try to beg Draco Malfoy to let her come. She pulls the blankets over her head as she recalls her wanton moaning. This could not be happening.

She squeezes her eyes shut, but all that does is bring her attention to the burning of her thighs. They're sore, and when she reaches down to touch them-- maybe it was all a dream?-- she hisses as the light brush of her fingers sends sharp pinpricks of pain into her legs. If she had to guess, the skin is raw and red from all the biting, the kissing, the licking. Oh Merlin, the licking.

She spends a moment wondering if it's possible to Avada yourself.

She rubs her palms into her eyes hard enough to hurt, hoping the pain will distract her. Never again. She was never having sex again. She'd get another cat and invest in a whole closet full of sex toys before she let herself get horny and lonely enough to consider trying something else so monumentally stupid and humiliating.

She gets up, because lying in bed pretending not to exist isn't doing her any favours, and tries to remind herself that no one knows about it. Well, except for the shopkeeper. And Draco. But the shopkeeper sees women do this all the time, it's part of the job, and Hermione had given her a fake name anyway. So that's fine. And Draco, well. Draco didn't know it was her. Which was basically the same thing as it not being her. In fact, it was really debatable whether it happened at all. Really. Draco had fucked (and eaten out. And caressed. And brought to orgasm) some random pair of legs. And Hermione had... well. No one could prove Hermione had done anything.

And besides. Even if Hermione did do something yesterday-- which, she didn't, she took a sick day from work and watched Netflix from bed-- _his fingers on the crease of her thigh as his breath ghosted over her core_ \--, she was a feminist. She believed in a woman's right to a healthy, private sex life. There was nothing wrong with going to a glory hole and getting fucked by strangers-- which, she hadn't-- _his teeth nipping at her inner lips_ \-- as long as everyone was protected and consenting. She respected a witch, and a muggle's!, right to pursue pleasure in whatever way they saw fit, as long as everyone involved was safe, sane, and consenting.

As she walks into her bathroom, Hermione's eye catches on the mostly empty water bottle from yesterday, and she promptly vanishes it into the ether. It was going to be a completely normal Wednesday, preceded by a completely normal Tuesday, and that was that on that.

She arrives at work half an hour early and tells herself she's just trying to get a head start on the work she missed the day before. It had nothing to do with her empty flat and Crookshanks' knowing, judgmental eyes. It was completely unrelated to the way that she spent an extra twenty minutes in the mirror that morning, making sure she looked exactly the same as every other day, and did not have something fundamentally different in her expression, or on her person. It was totally separate from the way she found herself completely unable to stomach the thought of breakfast, instead downing a second cup of coffee (that she didn't need, as she'd been wide awake since the moment she opened her eyes) in lieu of her regular ritual of eggs, toast, and yogurt.

"I'm feeling great, thank you. All recovered!" She tells her assistant, who did not ask, as she breezes into her office.

She's twice as productive as usual, feeling energized from her day of rest and recovery from her illness. She works through lunch because she has paperwork to catch up on, and not because every moment she lets her mind wander she feels phantom lips on the skin above her ankle. She's the last person in her department to leave, because she's a dedicated employee and a good boss, and not because she doesn't know what she'll do when she gets home and has nothing to distract her.

She does not think about Draco Malfoy. Not when she's making dinner, stomach cramping from her lack of sustenance all day. Not when she turns on the muggle news and curls up with Crookshanks on the couch, listening intently to the updates on Brexit as Crooks' claws knead into the blanket on her lap. Not when she finally turns off the light and crawls into bed, exhaustion tugging at her limbs and eyes heavy from reading, two hours after her normal bedtime.

She does not think about Draco Malfoy at all, because she has not seen him in five years and he is a non-entity to her. 

The next day is more of the same. She gets up, and she does not think about what rough wooden walls feel like against the delicate skin of her palms. She makes and eats breakfast, and tells herself she's wearing a pantsuit because it's comfortable and projects strength, and not because it keeps her sore, beleaguered thighs from touching. She goes to meetings, and when the Minister knocks on the table to gather everyone's attention, she doesn't hear a rush of blood in her ears as she gasps around a rubber ball.

Just a perfectly normal Thursday, following a perfectly normal Wednesday, following a perfectly normal Tuesday. A routine, average week, really.

On Friday, her libido comes out of hiding. She wakes up panting, slick and on edge, to the memory of lips wrapped around her clit. Embarrassment is the last thing on her mind. She's so close, it only takes 4 strokes of her fingers, and the memory of silver eyes, until she's collapsing into her sheets, breath hitched and toes uncurling.

He's everywhere. In the twinge of her thighs when she gets up to use the loo (she still hasn't vanished the marks), in the inky black of her coffee as she sees his fingers wrap around a mug in the Great Hall, in the leather of her coworkers’ shoes as she casts her eyes at the floor of the lift as it travels down to her department. She's still embarrassed, horrifically so, but Merlin is she horny.

She spends her lunch break staring into space at her desk, idly chewing on a sandwich as she wonders if you can still see the raised veins in his forearms when he curls his fingers around his wand.

What would his arm look like, fingers extended as he drives his hand into her body? Would he clench his jaw in concentration, or smirk that infuriating smirk of his? Would his fringe fall over his eyes, obscuring them, or would he flip it back, out of his face?

Her lunch lasts ten minutes past her allotted hour because she has to cast three cooling charms in the loo before she feels human enough to work.

She's on edge and distracted the rest of the day. She barely gets through half her paperwork, because everything reminds her of him. She reads the first page of a forty page proposal thrice over because her eyes keep catching on the word encounter. A perfectly normal word, but every time she sees it she thinks of his large hands grabbing her bum, pinching her thigh. She hears his voice in her ear shushing her. She imagines what he must have looked like driving into her, beads of sweat forming at his temples. Had he taken off his shirt? She wants to know what his chest feels like against her breasts, whether the circle of his arms is as inviting as his voice.

She leaves work an hour early, shoulders tensed and jaw clenched as the tension of her arousal builds in her body. There's no use in forcing herself to stay, she can't concentrate like this, wound up and unable to think about anything that doesn't involve gunmetal eyes.

She begins undoing the buttons of her blouse the moment she arrives in her living room, fingers quick as she simultaneously kicks off her heels. It's too hot in her flat, and she's pulling up her hair with her shirt halfway open and her robes sliding off one shoulder. She magicks a window open as she lets her robes pool at her stockinged feet, and then she's unzipping her skirt as she walks across the flat to her bedroom. The rest of her top is next as she shimmies her hips enough to convince her skirt to let go of her thighs. She doesn't even bother with her tights, she just vanishes them. They had run this morning when she had hastily pulled them on anyway, and she was holding a grudge against how overheated and restricted they'd made her feel all day. And then she was crawling up her bed on all fours in nothing but her bra and pants, skin finally able to breathe, coverlet plush against her knees.

She's in too much of a hurry to remove anything else as she summons her favorite vibrator. And then she's in her office as Draco leans in her doorway, looking at her knowingly, asking if she thought he wouldn't figure it out. She slides the toy against her clit as he backs her into the wall, smirking, running his hands under her shirt up her sides. Her breasts are pushing against the cage of her bra as her breathing deepens and she pushes the on button as his plush lips descend on her throat. He's pinching her waist and sliding his fingers under the waistband of her bra, teasing, as she tries to stay quiet. She knows he locked the door, but she can't think straight long enough to remember if either of them cast a silencing charm. It doesn't matter. His clever, clever hands are tracing where the seam of her underwear hits her skin, and then he's smushing her between him and the wall as he claims her mouth. She moans, and when he rubs himself into her she ticks the speed of the toy up a notch. His fingers are sliding through her folds before circling her entrance and she's clutching at his strong shoulders as her knees stop supporting her weight. His hands are toying with her and she growls at him to stop teasing before she's being stretched open. She keens, muffling the sound against the skin of his throat, burrowing her head in the softness, as he plunges in and out of her. He's tugging at her hair and she's arching into him and then it's his cock inside of her and not his fingers. She feels slick everywhere, behind her knees, in the hollow of her collarbone, as the vibrations of him fucking her into the wall travel through her whole body. She's clenching around him, eyes squeezed shut, hands balled into fists in his hair as he whispers how good she is for him.

When she opens her eyes again she's still fluttering around her toy, panting on her coverlet as she comes back into her body. She tugs it out of her, wrists weak, and turns it off before tossing it at the foot of her bed. Then she rolls onto her stomach and screams into her pillow.

She gets off to the thought of him three more times that night. He pins her wrists to the bed, kicks her feet open as he bends her over, bites her ear as he pinches her nipples. She comes around his cock, his fingers, his tongue. She even rides the hard muscle of his thigh as his hands dig into her hips, guiding her. The blinking red light of her charging vibrator glares at her until she finally throws a pillow over it so she can sleep. Thank Godric tomorrow is Saturday.

**~*~**

Unfortunately, the arrival of Saturday does not improve Hermione's mental state. If anything, the chaos in her mind gets worse. Her little fantasy from the day before brings one idea forward with urgency: Draco Malfoy might have recognized her. She tells herself it isn't possible. There's no way he could have known it was her just from her legs. They hadn't seen each other in years. He'd only ever had the opportunity to see her bare legs a few times-- Scottish winters were cold, and Hermione wore tights from October to April. And what he had-- maybe-- seen of her bare legs, if he'd ever managed to push beyond his disgust to consider them-- certainly didn't include her thighs, her bum, that small dark freckle just underneath her hip. And the angle he had seen them in the other day-- well. He had certainly never seen her legs from that angle at Hogwarts. The likelihood of him somehow recognizing her just from her bare legs and muffled moaning was slim. But was it slimmer than the likelihood of him being there by coincidence?

That's what Hermione really couldn't get over. Why was he there in the first place? Why would Draco Malfoy, rich, handsome, and disgusted with all things muggle, seek out a pair of legs in the backroom of a muggle sex shop? Surely women must be falling all over themselves to be the mother of the next Malfoy heir.

The way Hermione saw it, there were three possibilities. First, that Draco Malfoy just happened to be at the same sex shop as her, on the same Tuesday afternoon, looking for the same thing. He treated her the same way he treated every other pair of legs he'd ever used, with familiarity because he was a regular, and had not noticed anything that would suggest there was anything at all odd about the encounter. He did not recognize her, and went home sated and oblivious. It was all just a huge coincidence and he was none the wiser.

Possibility number two: that Draco had entered the shop and set about his business unaware of the witch on the other side of the wall, but at some point over the course of their encounter had figured out her identity. He hadn't alerted her to this for reasons unknown, possibly similar to her own reasons for not alerting him, possibly not, and went home knowing he had fucked Hermione Granger silly.

The final possibility was the worst. That Draco had seen her, somehow, or known where she was going, and followed her into the shop. That he had walked into the room knowing full well who she was, and fucked her anyway. That he had planned this, or at least deliberated on it, and even now was smugly considering his conquest of Hermione Granger.

She plays with the final possibility first, because it scares her the most. She sits with it, trying to unravel it. Draco couldn't have followed her from Magical London, because she hadn't gone through Magical London to get to the shop. As part of her job with the Ministry, she has access to an apparition point within muggle Parliament, and had slipped through the tourists, out the building, and had taken the Tube one stop to her destination. She could think of no reason he'd be at muggle Parliament, though admittedly she didn't know much about his goings-on these days, but even if he were there, he would have lost her in the teeming crowds scrambling to get photos. She would have noticed him out on the streets, nervous and jumpy as she was, and he couldn't have hidden in a Tube car. And even if he had-- somehow-- been meandering through the streets of muggle London, why follow her into an unknown shop? Why wait forty-five minutes to meet her in the back? Why keep quiet about knowing her identity, even afterwards? If the goal was revenge or humiliation, he certainly did a bad job of it. He could have done anything to her, and instead he kissed her skin like it was a gift and made her come until she saw stars. No taunting, no anger, no threats. Just pleasure, and consideration of her consent. If he had followed her out of innocent confusion and curiosity, he would have left when he realized what was going on. If he had followed her out of malice, he would have hurt her. He had no other reason to follow her. And if he had planned this whole thing to blackmail her, she would've heard from him by now.

So no. He hadn't known who she was when he entered the shop. But what about when he left?

She sits at her kitchen table, sips her coffee, and tries to work through it. She rethinks through their encounter, trying to block out the sensations and focus on the clues. His words. What did he say when he first came in? Something about how he liked his women. But he had stuttered over the word, a break in the smooth cadence of his voice. He had tried to say something else first. Something different. And with sudden clarity she realizes what he had been trying to say. Witches! How he liked his witches. But why change the word if he knew there was a witch on the other side? And he couldn't have known at that point. Not unless he recognized her instantly.

And then the contraceptive charm he had tried to cast, whispering so lowly he probably thought she couldn't hear him. And she wouldn't have heard him, she remembers, if she hadn't been so in tune with those specific words, the specific sounds of the syllables smushed together in haste and urgency, said gasping or growling or groaning or very, very quietly so as not to get caught. It was a spell she knew by heart, but would have sounded like idle incomprehensible sexual muttering to a muggle, the sounds of someone swept up in a fantasy come to life. A witch would've cast the spell herself before arriving, as she had. And certainly a witch as brilliant and meticulous as Hermione Granger would remember to cast it. So why cast it at all, if he knew who was on the other side? Why do it quietly, like a secret, when it was a secret they were both in on? Why not disguise his voice, if he knew it was her but was trying to keep his own identity a secret?

No, if he hadn't recognized her by that point, after he'd explored every inch of her legs with his lips and hands, after he'd buried his face in her cunt and found the taste of her essence in the back of his throat, he must not have recognized her at all. And he hadn't recognized her before then. That was clear from the useless, secret spell he cast.

Which left only the first possibility. That the whole thing was a twist of fate, a random coincidence. Two people who just happened to know each other ended up on either side of the same glory hole at the same time. But why? Why was he there, if he hadn't known? Why was he in muggle London at all?

She thinks about it all day. Why would Draco Malfoy become familiar with muggle London? And he must have been familiar with the area, to find the shop. The signage was discreet, and the name offered no hints as to the treasures inside. It looked like any other shop on that street, nothing to set it apart from the flats next door or the bookshop a little ways down.

She thinks it might be the same reason as her. The papers. The need for privacy, anonymity. The desire to be no one, just for a little while. But he wasn't in the papers. She couldn't recall seeing a single mention of him in the _Prophet_ for the last five years. And reading the _Prophet_ is part of her job!

Which, now that she thought about it, was odd. His father was in the papers. His mother, too, occasionally, for some gala or charity project. Most of their classmates were mentioned at one point or another, people curious about the going-ons in the lives of one of the smallest, and most traumatized, Hogwarts classes in decades. Or as the papers liked to put it, One of the Most Heroic Classes of Children in Years!, which Hermione always rolls her eyes at. They were children. They shouldn't have needed to be heroic. They should have been safe.

Even former Death Eaters were in the papers, their names slipped casually into articles when the writer wanted to make a cheap joke. The fact that his name didn't show up at all-- no life updates, no snide remarks, no unflattering comparisons, was-- strange.

They had reported on it when he had gotten out of Azkaban, six years ago. She remembers that. And afterwards, there had been interest in him, speculation on what the youngest Death Eater would do now that he was free. And then-- nothing. No news. No asides. Not one mention of Draco Malfoy in the _Daily Prophet_ for five years.

That-- that was something she could work with. The only time Rita Skeeter was that quiet about a person of public interest was when she was being paid, or blackmailed, to be so. Malfoy must be throwing his weight around, to not be in the papers at all. There was something there.

So he spent time in muggle London for privacy, clearly. But that didn't solve the mystery of the glory hole.

Even out of dress robes, it was obvious Draco Malfoy was rich. And he was certainly handsome enough to catch the eyes of muggle women, much as she would've denied it a week ago. And the things he said, the way he treated her, his disdain for the impersonality of the ordeal.... he wasn't looking for an anonymous, meaningless shag. He clearly craved connection, familiarity. But why not find it in one of the many muggle women who no doubt approached him regularly?

This was the part she couldn't get her head around. She could see the concern about a witch going to the _Prophet_ with sordid details about their relationship with Malfoy. She could understand why the type of witches who might be interested in him-- witches unafraid of a former Death Eater, or pretending to be, witches unconcerned with his personality and very concerned with his vaults, might not be appealing to Malfoy, if he were looking for something more than a meaningless shag. But if he was so comfortable with muggle London, why not a muggle woman?

And then she tries to imagine Draco Malfoy, who stuttered over the word _women_ , who didn't know how to cast a silent contraceptive charm, and who had looked at muggles as if they were aliens in school, spending more than five minutes pretending to be a muggle. She has to lean on the table in front of her because it takes her breath away, the ferocity of her giggles. The image of him trying to work a kettle lodges itself in her mind, and she sees him trying to order it around like he would a house elf. She could vividly imagine his growing irritation with the contraption, not understanding why it didn't produce tea on command, as he desperately tried to impress whatever girl had brought him back to her flat. She feels her muscles collapsing as she laughs herself out of her chair, seeing exactly the way he would yell at it, all prim and proper, before hitting it repeatedly with his wand. Something about the image just sets her off, and she feels a little bit crazy at the intensity of her amusement. But the idea of Draco Malfoy, haughty and in control, failing at a completely mundane task because he doesn’t understand basic technology, is too much for her. She wouldn't subject a muggle to that, as hilarious as it would be. And lying on the floor, shaking with guffaws, she could understand why Draco might quickly discard the idea of pursuing muggle women.

So, a sex shop then. Unconventional, but easier to manage than a flat full of muggle technology he was expected to be familiar with the use of. Less risky than witches, less humiliating than muggles. It made sense, she supposed, if it were his least complicated sexual option. It had certainly been hers. She didn't relish the idea of dating a muggle man she'd have to lie to about her entire life. And she had learned the hard way that wizards could not be trusted.

But still. How had he discovered the shop? How much time did he really spend in muggle London? Did anyone else know about his habit? She goes to bed pondering the mystery of Draco Malfoy, trying to follow the threads of how he may have ended up on the other side of that wall.

She wakes up on Sunday insatiable. She had dreamed about him the night before, replaying their interaction in vivid color behind her eyelids. But this time, she saw the scene from above, as if viewing it in a pensieve. She saw the way his fingers tugged open his belt. She saw the curve of his muscled thighs as he thrust into her, bum flexing. She saw herself, arching at a nip here, gasping at a particularly hard thrust there. They looked good together. And somehow, while she slept, something shifted in her subconscious. When she opens her eyes on Sunday, it’s the most obvious fact in the world. She wants more than just one afternoon.

She spends all day obsessing over it, over him. She wants to know everything. What he had been doing since he got out of Azkaban. If he was working. How many women he had fucked on one side of a wooden wall. Whether he'd make the same sounds as he had on Tuesday if she were the one setting the pace.

She digs out the pile of _Daily Prophets_ she keeps in her home and goes through them meticulously, trying to confirm yesterday's theory. He wasn't in any of them. Not one mention. Nor in the Quibbler. Not even Witch Weekly. Draco Malfoy hadn't appeared, at all, in any paper in the last five years. It was like he had disappeared.

Had he left the country after Azkaban? How much of a low profile was he keeping? Was he still in touch with his old friends?

She feels like Harry in 6th year, obsessed with his every move. She ignores the part of her brain that tells her this isn’t just lust, that normal people don't react this way to a shag-- exceptional as it may have been. That part of her brain could get stuffed.

Maybe it was that he had changed, when he was the last person she would have expected to. Maybe it was that he had awakened something within her, some new part of herself that she didn't know she had, a part that liked to be praised and petted. Maybe, a small, traitorous voice in her head says, it was that she had had a small, secret crush on him in school, and now that he had finally shown her the attention and appreciation she had always longed for, it was short-circuiting her system. She tells that voice to get stuffed too.

It didn't matter why she suddenly cared to ask all these questions about someone she hadn't thought about in years. What mattered was getting answers.

**~*~**

She marches into Harry's office Monday morning, determined and focused. Harry would know the answers. Maybe not all of them, but enough. Enough to find him again.

She stops when she gets to Harry's receptionist, Glinda, and reminds herself that she needs to go about this strategically. Harry wouldn't just give up information on Malfoy, not if he suspected why she was asking. She had to be smooth, casual. Idly curious. It needed to be a conversation between friends, not an obvious attempt at accessing potentially classified intelligence.

She smiles at Glinda, and holds up one of the two to-go cups in her hands. "I thought Harry could use a pick-me-up this morning," she grins wider, tilting her mouth to the side to bring Glinda in on the joke. "Mondays and all."

Glinda waves her through, placated, and she schools her expression into something friendly and welcoming as she breezes through the door.

"Morning Harry!" She trills, and he stares up at her from behind his desk, clearly only half awake.

"Morning Mione," he yawns widely, shaking his head, presumably in an attempt at achieving some level of alertness. Harry has never been a morning person. "What're you doing here?"

She holds up his to-go cup again, before placing it on his desk. "I stopped by Janetta's on my way in today, figured I'd grab you something as well. I know you've been busy with a case recently, and thought I might be able to wrangle some quality time out of you before Mandamus noticed. We haven't seen nearly enough of each other lately."

Luckily, Harry is too busy reaching for the coffee like a man starving to catch the lie. She feels a bit guilty about it. It’s true, she _hasn't_ seen much of Harry recently, despite working in the same building. But that isn't the real reason she’s here, bribing him with his favorite coffee.

"So," she asks, settling into one of the chairs in front of his desk. "What's this case that's been keeping you from me?" Misdirection. Make him think she was here about the case, not Malfoy.

He groans, dropping his forehead on the cup lid in defeat. "You know I can't tell you that, Mione." He sighs and then, "I knew the coffee was a lie."

She shrugs, and acts unconcerned, though it's less of an act than she pretends. She doesn't really care about the case. "Just curious."

Harry rolls his eyes. "You and Ginny both. She keeps making comments about how convenient it is that I always get home after the kids are already asleep. She doesn't believe me when I tell her I'd rather read Goodnight Moon for the 30th time than spend hours shivering in a dark alley, hoping something interesting happens. But she isn't wrong that I'm happy to escape potty training." He flashes her a grin.

She laughs. "I bet." Harry's kids were three and one, and, much as she adored them, they also reminded her how happy she was to be childless at the moment. Harry and Ginny may have been ready to start a family in their mid-20s, but Hermione enjoyed her freedom. Perhaps a little too much, if last week was any indication.

"Speaking of children," she says, inching the conversation closer to where she wants it to go, "I ran into Parvati the other day. Did you know she had a little girl last year? She showed me pictures."

Harry tilts his head. "I haven't thought about her in ages, but good for her. I'm glad at least some of our classmates have managed to live mostly normal lives, after everything."

She hums in agreement. "It's interesting how all of our lives have diverged so dramatically. To think, eight years ago we all stood on the same battlefield, and now some of us have kids while others are languishing in their singlehood."

Harry rolls his eyes again, fondly this time. "You'll find someone, Mione. I'm sure of it."

"One of these days," she concurs with a rueful half-smile. "I wonder what the rest of our old classmates are up to, if anyone else is doing anything interesting."

"I heard Seamus moved to the States," Harry offers, and Hermione doesn't have to fake her surprise.

"I have to say, I wouldn't have predicted that!" She laughs. "If anyone was going to flee the country, I expected it to be a Slytherin."

Harry hums. "I think Blaise Zabini moved back to Italy, but I'm not sure. We're stuck with the rest of them though."

Hermione wrinkles her nose in exaggerated displeasure. "I wonder what they've been doing these past few years. I imagine people aren't exactly lining up to invite them for tea like they used to be." It was true, the wizarding world was fickle. Always after the newest, bestest, brightest, and quick to turn their backs on whoever was currently out of favor.

"No, I suppose not. I'm sure they manage though. Their lavish manors take the sting out of it."

"So you don't think any of them are working then?,” She presses. “Even mansions get boring when you've run out of things to do. I know I'd go crazy."

Harry waves his hand. "Oh they have fake pureblood jobs, you know. Zabini runs his wine business from Italy, Malfoy took over the family company from his father."

Hermione's caught off guard again. "I didn't know the Malfoys owned a company. What does it even do? Fund blood purist causes around Europe?"

Harry snorts. "It doesn't do anything, you know how rich people are. It's a company that owns a bunch of other companies that own even more companies that actually do things. The Malfoys just... throw money at muggle Wall Street or bribe politicians or something, I don't know."

She nods sagely. "Ah yes. A favorite pastime of the absurdly rich. Malfoy must live here in London then, if he spends his time tinkering with the financial district and manipulating Parliament. I'm surprised I haven't seen him around." Maybe he _had_ followed her that day...

Harry squints up at her suspiciously, seeing right through her in the way he has always been able to do. "I guess. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about him, aside from the mandatory annual check-ins the department conducts. Were you hoping to run into him?"

She laughs nervously, trying to pretend the idea is absurd. "Of course not!" She hastens to reassure, too quickly and high-pitched. Harry's not convinced.

She tries to look nonchalant. "Just curious." Harry's eyebrows don't lower from their spot halfway up his forehead. "He was just such a large part of our lives for seven years, it's surreal to think about the fact that he's no longer in them at all. None of them are."

Harry scoffs. "Good riddance."

She bites her tongue. "Yeah. Something like that."

**~*~**

On Tuesday she takes another half-day, claiming she has to take Crookshanks to the vet. The idea of taking a kneazle to a muggle veterinarian is patently absurd, but she's hoping her well-known insistence on doing some things (read: dental appointments) the muggle way will keep people from asking too many questions.

Instead, she floos home, kisses Crookshanks on the head and apologizes for not being able to spend the day with him, and changes into something thoroughly inconspicuous. Then she casts a disillusionment charm, apparates to Parliament, takes the tube to the sex shop, and waits.

She's hoping he shows up, if he lives in London. His behaviour, and the shop keeper's comments about Tuesdays being slow, suggests he's probably a regular. She just hopes he comes from the opposite direction of where she's camped, leaning against a building about half a block away. She doesn't like the idea of getting snuck up on. She had considered asking Harry if she could borrow his invisibility cloak, but she didn't want to have to explain what she needed it for. Hopefully a simple disillusionment was enough.

She waits for a few minutes, bored, wishing she had brought some work with her as a distraction. She hopes he hasn't already entered the shop, or worse, come earlier and left already. She doesn't even have any solid evidence to suggest that he'll be here today at all, but this is the only lead she has. Harry had been less helpful than she had hoped.

She starts to feel silly about an hour in, wondering what she's doing waiting for her former bully to show up at a sex shop so she can... what? Beg him to get her off again? The whole plan is absurd, and she feels like a fool for even considering it, much less waiting this long for someone who may not even live in the country to arrive.

Predictably, this is when Draco makes his appearance. He seems to have a sense for when she's feeling most idiotic, and knows to pop up just then. It had served him well in school, though she's the one who seems to be benefitting in adulthood.

The first thing she notices about him is that he looks good. Broad shoulders. Hair free from gel, falling softly over his forehead. His peacoat has been tailored to his form in a way that's truly impressive, and he's taller than the last time she saw him in person. He's walking confidently, gait relaxed, towards the shop, and before she can decipher the expression on his face, he's slipped inside.

A burning, curious part of her wants to follow him in, to know if he'll go to the back again. To see if he browses the shelves, picks anything out. To find out if he wears cologne. To know what it smells like.

The more rational part of her brain reminds herself that would be a terrible idea, and commits to staying right where she is.

It's twenty minutes before he emerges again. She doesn't know what that means. Did he go to the back? Does she care? She has no claim on him. She shouldn't feel jealous. He doesn't have a shopping bag from the store on him, only the same leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder that he had when he arrived. She tries not to think about how good muggle clothing looks on him, and fails.

He's walking away from the store, and her feet start to follow him before she's made the conscious decision to do so. She just wants to understand him. And maybe if she can figure out a way to casually run into him that would be good too.

They walk a few blocks, her trying to dodge out of people's way so as not to draw attention to the fact that they aren’t noticing her, and she wonders if what she's doing could be considered stalking. Surely not. She's just... trying to catch up with an old classmate, is all. The question is only working up the nerve to approach him.

Which--it becomes abundantly clear--she doesn't have. She must have used it all up last Tuesday, because when he ducks into a coffee shop she can't bring herself to follow. She doesn't want him to know she's been following him, and entering the coffee shop he's in, even a few minutes after him, might raise questions.

But now, at least, she knows a bit more than she did this morning. She knows he's a regular at this cafe, probably. She knows he drinks muggle coffee. She knows his thighs look just as good in his muggle slacks as they felt against the sensitive skin of her bum. And she has an idea of where she might be able to find him again, if she wants to. It's a start.

**~*~**

She shows up at the cafe she saw him enter every day for the next four days. She grabs a table, pulls out a book, orders a drink, and waits. She tells herself she's not waiting for him. She's not even sure if she _wants_ him to see her. Until now, her revelation and her obsession have been something she's been able to work through privately. She doesn't know how he'll respond to seeing her, and she hates not knowing. By waiting in a place he might see her, she's taking him out of her fantasies and into the real world, where she's not completely in control. It's thrilling, yet terrifying.

She suspects she doesn't see him the first three days because she comes after work and he's already left by the time she gets there. She tries not to obsess over it, and reminds herself how much progress she's making in her book. She's so busy all the time, she forgets the simple joy of sitting somewhere cozy, surrounded by other people and ambient noise, losing herself in someone else’s story.

The fourth day, Saturday, she goes a few hours earlier, in the afternoon, and tries not to get her hopes up. It's possible he only stopped at this coffee shop because it was convenient, and not because he comes here regularly. She tells herself that if she doesn't run into him after a week, she's going to reevaluate her choices. Maybe she needs to find someone else. The fact that she doesn't want anyone else is not relevant.

She notices immediately when he comes in. Something in her body reacts to him, skin tightening, core tingling, before she even sees him. She forces herself to keep her eyes firmly on the words in front of her and act relaxed.

Once she knows he's there, her ears zero in on the sound of his footsteps, the now-familiar sound of dragon leather and a crisp gait. The sound gets louder, and out of the corner of her eye she sees his signature shoes come to a stop in front of her table.

She waits, pretending obliviousness, but he doesn't say anything. She can hear her blood humming in her ears. There's only so long she can pretend not to have noticed him. Finally, she glances up, then acts startled when she sees him. Eyes widening, and a little jolt for good measure. "Malfoy," she goes for aghast, "what are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" He responds coolly. "I'm getting coffee." She stares at him dumbly, unsure how to respond. Then remembers she's not the one with no business in muggle London.

"I come here all the time. I didn't expect to see you in muggle London. What-- what have you been up to?" She hopes her lack of contempt for her old bully is believable. Perhaps her surprise has caused her to let down her guard?

His mouth is a hard line, and the only way to describe the set of his shoulders is _defensive_. "So we're making small talk then?" He asks, unimpressed.

She raises her eyebrows. " _You_ approached _me_ ," she reminds him. "I'm just trying to be polite."

The look he gives her suggests she's not living up to her moniker as the Brightest Witch of Her Age. "I know you didn't just happen to run into me, Granger. I've never seen you here before. They didn't take my brain from me in Azkaban too."

She squares her shoulders, offended. "I don't know what you're talking about. This is my favorite coffee shop. I come here all the time and I've never had my reading interrupted by rude classmates before."

He snorts, and somehow there's something attractive about it. "That's preposterous. You're from Elephant and Castle. This is on the other side of the city." He pulls out the chair across from her without asking, settling in.

She starts, genuinely this time. "How did you know that?"

"I remember you mentioning it in school and thinking it was a ridiculous name for an area. Now tell me why you're really here." His arms fold across his chest, unyielding. 

“Fine. You win,” she says, thinking quickly, realizing there’s no way she can convince him she’s here by coincidence. “I wanted to talk to you about your company. I thought the way you interact with both muggle and wizard financial institutions might be relevant to my department.”

His eyes get hard now too. “I assure you, my company does nothing of interest to the ministry. Cut the crap, Granger.”

Still trying to salvage the situation, she stutters something out about Wall Street and currency conversion between Galleons, Dollars, and Pounds. It’s nonsensical to her own ears, especially when she doesn’t even really know what his company does, and from the look on his face he doesn’t believe her. He’s clearly unimpressed.

He raises his eyebrows into his hairline, and in a tone of disbelief asks, “Am I under investigation?” Clearly, her pretext for being here is flimsy enough that he thinks Harry sent her to spy on him. Guilt twists in her gut. She doesn’t want him to think he’s in trouble.

“No!” She rushes to reassure him. “No,” she says again. And then goes quiet, because she has absolutely no idea how to explain what she’s doing here.

They stare at each other for a few moments, him waiting for her to speak, and when she offers no further explanations he leans forward, eyes stormy. “I know there’s something more going on. I recognize your shiftiness. I saw it every time you and your friends were up to something in school. Your acting skills are only A for acceptable, Granger. Why are you really here.”

It’s not a question, but it demands an answer. She knows he’s not going to relent until she gives him one. She looks around, uncomfortable, only to find patrons at nearby tables staring at them. They’ve obviously been putting on a bit of a show.

“Let’s talk outside,” she decides abruptly, standing up and stuffing her book back in her purse. He looks like he wants to roll his eyes but politely refrains, gesturing for her to lead the way.

They walk out together, and she spots the alley she had used to observe him from the other day. Tucked out of the way with no foot traffic, it’s the closest they’re going to get to privacy in the middle of London. She just hopes he hadn’t noticed her on Tuesday.

They slip into the small gap and he leans against one of the walls, still waiting for an explanation. He’s clearly determined not to say anything until he knows for certain this isn’t some scheme to get him in trouble. She glances at him and his unimpressed eyebrows and bites her lip. Maybe it’s time for something closer to the truth.

She takes a deep breath and then says, “I was walking around town the other day and… I saw you. It had been so long since I had seen you… I don’t know. I wanted to know what you were up to. And then,” she averts her eyes, blushing, “you walked into a sex shop.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “That was you then? You don’t live the life I have without getting a sense of when you’re being followed. Are you trying to blackmail me? There’s nothing illegal about patronizing a sex shop. And besides, I didn’t take you for a prude.”

She can physically feel her face heating up. So he had seen the article. This was why she no longer dated wizards—they all felt entitled to her personal life. Four years ago, she had gone on a date, and then home with, someone who had seemed perfectly nice. She had even been looking forward to a second date with him. That is, until she had seen intimate details of their night together splashed across the front page of the _Daily Prophet_ two days later. Now everyone in the wizarding world thought they knew everything there was to know about her. Well, they didn’t.

She squares her shoulders, looking him right in the eye. “I’m not blackmailing you. You’re right, I sought you out today, but only because I was curious. I wanted to understand why Draco Malfoy would go to a muggle sex shop.” Mostly true.

He visibly considers her words for a moment. But then he shakes his head. “No,” he says slowly. “The shop is unlabelled. You had to have been there before to know what it was.” He grins wolfishly at her. “Not a prude then, and that was no casual walk. What’s this really about?”

She stands firm. “I hate mysteries.”

He raises one eyebrow. “And I hate playing games. I’ve had enough tiptoeing and subterfuge for one lifetime. The only games I’m interested in are ones that end in orgasms.”

She squeaks, entirely involuntarily, not expecting him to say something like that. Her desire for him, which had gone dormant as she worried about his reaction to seeing her, hits her again like a freight train. When she looks up on him, he has a contemplative look on his face. Like he was trying to place where he had heard that sound before. She rushes to cover her slip.

“I saw you at the shop and I was curious,” she repeats. “I thought it was sensible of you. Practical. Were you buying something for your girlfriend?” She turns it around on him.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he tilts his head, “but I’m sure you knew that. You seem awfully interested in my love life.” A hint of a smirk comes out.

Another deep breath. “Like I said, I thought it was sensible.”

“Sensible.” He repeats, one eyebrow raised.

“Practical,” she reiterates.

“Practical.” He echoes her, more amused by the second.

“Discreet,” she finally concedes, feeling her face flame again and hoping he doesn’t notice. His smirk is full-blown now.

She decides to just dive right in. There’s no way this interaction can get any more embarrassing, and sometimes she just has to take what she wants. If her suspicions about him are correct, he’s the last person who’d go running to the _Prophet_ about their conversation.

“You’ve seen the papers,” she tells him, trying not to think about exactly what he might have seen in them. “I can’t be seen with a wizard without wild speculation. And I thought maybe you had the same problem.” Clearly, he was invested in keeping his life out of public view.

“Spent a lot of time thinking about me, have you?” he asks, smug. She wants to smack the smirk right off his handsome face.

No way out but through. “I thought--,” she starts, then redirects. “You seem like someone who’s able to keep a secret. You’ve changed. You keep your affairs private. I thought you might be amenable to an arrangement.”

“An arrangement?” he parrots, his expression somehow becoming infinitely more smug.

She loses her temper. “Can you stop repeating everything I say back to me like an insufferable prat?!” Perhaps this was a bad idea. Surely the sex could not be worth this level of frustration every time she had to actually talk to him.

He widens his eyes innocently. “I just want to be clear about your intentions, seeing as how you’ve been so cagey about them.”

She takes another deep breath. “Yes. An arrangement. Where we can both get our needs met. Discreetly.” She emphasizes. “You’re fit, and maybe the only wizard who won’t go running to the _Prophet_ ,” she looks at him askance. “I know you must be paying them off. We could have some fun together. Casual. No one has to know.”

His expression is entirely neutral when she looks up at him. “So you followed me to this coffee shop, and then came back and waited for me, because you want to have sex with me.”

She gathers all her Gryffindor courage and finds her voice. Now or never. “Yes.”

His face is stone, giving away nothing. “I want to hear you say it. So I know you’re not lying.”

She is at the absolute end of her rope. Has he not humiliated her enough? “If you’re going to be a prat about this Malfoy, I’ll just buy another vibrator,” she spits out, exasperated.

He crosses the length of the alley until he’s right in front of her and then leans in. “Just once,” he breathes, and there’s a challenge in his expression. He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to humiliate her. He sounds like he really wants to know.

Could she say it? A few days ago, she could barely admit it to herself. Two weeks ago, she would have bet her Order of Merlin that she’d never even think about it. And now? “I want to have sex with you,” she says quietly but firmly, tilting her chin up to look right at him.

His quicksilver eyes search hers for a few moments. Then, lowly, he says, “You were only ever a passable liar.”

He steps back, and then at a normal volume states: “Okay.” Like a declaration.

“Okay?” she repeats dumbly, still feeling a bit dizzy from the effect of his eyes staring into hers.

His face is open again, and the smirk comes back out. “Did you think I would say no?”

She regathers her wits. What were they talking about again? The arrangement. Right. “You didn’t seem very pleased to be having this conversation,” she parries, because truly, he had been much more obstinate about this than she had expected.

He rolls his beautiful eyes. “Forgive me for being skeptical of the sudden reemergence of someone I haven’t seen in years, skulking about, prying into my personal life for unknown reasons.”

Whatever. “Right,” she nods, still trying to get her brain back online. “Well then. So that’s it? You’re amenable? Great. Your place or mine?” She hopes he has a place in town and doesn’t still live in the Manor.

“Eager aren’t you?” he asks, and she feels awkward for assuming. “No, this conversation isn’t nearly over. Dinner. My place. Friday. If this is to be an ongoing arrangement, I’d like to do my research. Find out what makes you tick,” he says this like a promise, and she doesn’t tell him that he already has. “And of course, make sure we’re on the same page about boundaries. Limits. I wouldn’t want to scare off a willing witch who so conveniently fell in my lap.” He looks her up and down. “Metaphorically speaking.”

She hates that he’s so presumptuous about this, even though he has every right to be. “What if I have plans?” she challenges.

“I believe we already established the state of your social life,” he dismisses. “Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”

She opens her mouth to retort, but then he’s crowding her into the wall behind her and she loses her voice. His gaze travels from her hair to her toes, eyes intense. He leans forward, until there’s only a centimetre of space between them, and she wonders if he’s going to kiss her. The air around them is electric, and her breath catches in her throat. His ghosts over her face, warm and sweet, and she tries to swallow. His eyes catch hers and suddenly they’re the only thing she can see. She feels goosebumps rising along her skin, her body aching for his touch. The space between them shrinks even further, and her lids fall closed. She feels the warmth of his presence begin to sink into her bones, and she parts her lips in invitation. Everything is still, except for the sparks zinging through her veins in anticipation. Another of his exhales skates across her lips, her cheeks, a whisper of a sound.

And then nothing. The warmth fades. His presence retreats. And when she opens her eyes, he’s gone.

She goes home and gets off to the liquid mercury in his gaze as he’d looked at her. This time, the memory is fresh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, this fic is set in 2018, aka our current time pre-corona. I don't really care when JKR set the books. 
> 
> Hopefully the lack of porn wasn't too disappointing-- I wanted to keep the plot mostly contained to one chapter so we can jump right back in to what we're all here for next time. I don't have an update schedule, but expect something within the next 2-3 weeks. 
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts! What are you looking forward to most next chapter? Did this answer any of your questions from the first part? What would be your reaction the day after going to a glory hole?
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely comments from last time. <3 I'm so glad to hear I don't come off as an obvious fic amateur!


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